NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
The following bit of a private letter to a good girl belonging to the upper classes may be generally useful; so I asked her to copy it for Fors.
“January, 1874.
“Now mind you dress always charmingly; it is the first duty of a girl to be charming, and she cannot be charming if she is not charmingly dressed.
“And it is quite the first of firsts in the duties of girls in high position, nowadays, to set an example of beautiful dress without extravagance,—that is to say, without waste, or unnecessary splendour.
“On great occasions they may be a blaze of jewels, if they like, and can; but only when they are part of a great show or ceremony. In their daily life, and ordinary social relations, they ought at present to dress with marked simplicity, to put down the curses of luxury and waste which are consuming England.
“Women usually apologize to themselves for their pride and vanity, by saying, ‘It is good for trade.’
“Now you may soon convince yourself, and everybody about you, of the monstrous folly of this, by a very simple piece of definite action.
“Wear, yourself, becoming, pleasantly varied, but simple dress, of the best possible material. [[44]]
“What you think necessary to buy (beyond this) ‘for the good of trade,’ buy, and immediately burn.
“Even your dullest friends will see the folly of that proceeding. You can then explain to them that by wearing what they don’t want (instead of burning it) for the good of trade, they are merely adding insolence and vulgarity to absurdity.”
I am very grateful to the writer of the following letters for his permission to print the portions of them bearing on our work. The first was written several years ago.
“Now, my dear friend, I don’t know why I should intrude what I now want to say about my little farm, which you disloyally dare to call a kingdom, but that I know you do feel an interest in such things; whereas I find not one in a hundred does care a jot for the moral influence and responsibilities of landowners, or for those who live out of it, and by the sweat of the brow for them and their own luxuries which pamper them, whilst too often their tenants starve, and the children die of want and fever.
“One of the most awful things I almost ever heard was from the lips of a clergyman, near B——, when asked what became of the children, by day, of those mothers employed in mills. He said, ‘Oh, I take care of them; they are brought to me, and I lay them in the churchyard.’ Poor lambs! What a flock!
“But now for my little kingdom,—the royalties of which, by the way, still go to the Duke of Devonshire, as lord of the minerals under the earth.
“It had for many years been a growing dream and desire of mine (whether right or wrong I do not say) to possess a piece of God’s earth, be it only a rock or a few acres of land, with a few people to live out of and upon it. Well, my good father had an estate about four miles across, embracing the whole upper streams and head of ——dale, some twelve hundred feet above [[45]]the sea, and lifted thus far away above the din and smoke of men, surrounded by higher hills, the grassy slopes of Ingleborough and Carn Fell. It was a waste moorland, with a few sheep farms on it, undivided, held in common,—a few small enclosures of grass and flowers, taken off at the time of the Danes, retaining Danish names and farm usages,—a few tenements, built by that great and noble Lady Anne Clifford, two hundred years ago; in which dwelt honest, sturdy, great-hearted English men and women, as I think this land knows.
“Well, this land my father made over by deed of gift to me, reserving to himself the rents for life, but granting to me full liberty to ‘improve’ and lay out what I pleased; charged also with the maintenance of a schoolmaster for the little school-house I built in memory of my late wife, who loved the place and people. With this arrangement I was well pleased, and at once began to enclose and drain, and, on Adam Smith principle, make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. This has gone on for some years, affording labour to the few folks there, and some of their neighbours. Of the prejudices of the old farmers, the less said the better; and as to the prospective increased value of rental, I may look, at least, for my five per cent., may I not? I am well repaid, at present, by the delight gained to me in wandering over this little Arcady, where I fancy at times I still hear the strains of the pipe of the shepherd Lord Clifford of Cumberland, blending with the crow of the moor-fowl, the song of the lark, and cry of the curlew, the bleating of sheep, and heaving and dying fall of the many waters. To think of all this, and yet men prefer the din of war or commercial strife! It is so pleasant a thing to know all the inhabitants, and all their little joys and woes,—like one of your bishops; and to be able to apportion them their work. Labour, there, is not accounted degrading work; even stone-breaking for the roads is not pauper’s work, and a test of starvation, [[46]]but taken gladly by tenant farmers to occupy spare time; for I at once set to work to make roads, rude bridges, plantations of fir-trees, and of oak and birch, which once flourished there, as the name signifies.
“I am now laying out some thousands of pounds in draining and liming, and killing out the Alpine flowers, which you tell me[1] is not wrong to do, as God has reserved other gardens for them, though I must say not one dies without a pang to me; yet I see there springs up the fresh grass, the daisy, the primrose—the life of growing men and women, the source of labour and of happiness; God be thanked if one does even a little to attain that for one’s fellows, either for this world or the next!
“How I wish you could see them on our one day’s feast and holiday, when all—as many as will come from all the country round—are regaled with a hearty Yorkshire tea at the Hall, as they will call a rough mullioned-windowed house I built upon a rock rising from the river’s edge. The children have their games, and then all join in a missionary meeting, to hear something of their fellow-creatures who live in other lands; the little ones gather their pennies to support and educate a little Indian school child;[2] this not only for sentiment, but to teach a care for others near home and far off.
“The place is five miles from church, and, happily, as far from a public-house, though still, I grieve to say, drink is the one failing of these good people, mostly arising from the want of full occupation.
“You speak of mining as servile work: why so? Hugh Miller was a quarryman, and I know an old man who has wrought coal [[47]]for me in a narrow seam, lying on his side to work, who has told me that in winter time he had rather work thus than sit over his fireside;[3] he is quiet and undisturbed, earns his bread, and is a man not without reflection. Then there is the smith, an artist in his way, and loves his work too; and as to the quarrymen and masons, they are some of the merriest fellows I know: they come five or six miles to work, knitting stockings as they walk along.
“I must just allude to one social feature which is pleasant,—that is, the free intercourse, without familiarity, or loss of respect for master and man. The farmer or small landowner sits at the same table at meals with the servants, yet the class position of yeoman or labourer is fully maintained, and due respect shown to the superior, and almost royal worship to the lord of the soil, if he is in anywise a good landlord. Now, is England quite beyond all hope, when such things exist here, in this nineteenth century of machine-made life? I know not why, I say again, I should inflict all this about self upon you, except that I have a hobby, and I love it, and so fancy others must do so too.
“Forgive me this, and believe me always,
“Yours affectionately.”
“5th January, 1874.
“My dear Mr. Ruskin,—I have just come from an old Tudor house in Leicestershire, which tells of happier days in some ways than our own. It was once the Grange of St. Mary’s Abbey; where rent and service were paid and done in kind. When there, I wished I could have gone a few miles with you to St. Bernard’s Monastery in Charnwood Forest; there you [[48]]would see what somewhat resembles your St. George’s land, only without the family and domestic features—certainly most essential to the happiness of a people.[4] But there you may see rich well-kept fields and gardens, where thirty years ago was nothing but wild moorland and granite tors on the hill ridges.
“The Cross of Calvary rises now on the highest rock; below are gardens and fields, all under the care and labour (happy labour it seems) of the Silent Brothers,[5] and a reformatory for boys. There is still much waste land adjoining. The spot is central, healthy, and as yet unoccupied: it really seems to offer itself to you. There, too, is space, pure air and water, and quarries of slate and granite, etc., for the less skilled labour.
“Well, you ask if the dalesmen of Yorkshire rise to a vivid state of contented life and love of the pretty things of heaven and earth. They have a rough outside, at times hard to penetrate; but when you do, there is a warm heart, but not much culture, although a keen value of manly education, and their duty to God and man. Apart from the vanities of the so-called ‘higher education,’ their calling is mostly out of doors, in company with sheep and cattle; the philosophy of their minds often worthy of the Shepherd Lord,—not much sight for the beauties of Nature beyond its uses. I CAN say their tastes are not low nor degraded by literature of the daily press, etc. I have known [[49]]them for twenty years, have stood for hours beside them at work, building or draining, and I never heard one foul or coarse word. In sickness, both man and woman are devoted. They have, too, a reverence for social order and ‘Divine Law,’—familiar without familiarity. This even pervades their own class or sub-classes;—for instance, although farmers and their families, and workpeople and servants, all sit at the same table, it is a rare thing for a labourer to presume to ask in marriage a farmer’s daughter. Their respect to landlords is equally shown. As a specimen of their politics, I may instance this;—to a man at the county election they voted for Stuart Wortley, ‘because he bore a well-known Yorkshire name, and had the blood of a gentleman.’
“As to hardships, I see none beyond those incident to their calling, in snow-storms, etc. You never see a child unshod or ill-clad. Very rarely do they allow a relative to receive aid from the parish.
“I tried a reading club for winter evenings, but found they liked their own fireside better. Happily, there is, in my part, no public-house within six miles; still I must say drink is the vice of some. In winter they have much leisure time, in which there is a good deal of card-playing. Still some like reading; and we have among them now a fair lot of books, mostly from the Pure Literature Society. They are proud and independent, and, as you say, must be dealt with cautiously. Everywhere I see much might be done. Yet on the whole, when compared with the town life of men, one sees little to amend. There is a pleasant and curious combination of work. Mostly all workmen,—builders (i.e. wallers), carpenters, smiths, etc.,—work a little farm as well as follow their own craft; this gives wholesome occupation as well as independence, and almost realizes Sir T. More’s Utopian plan. There is contented life of men, women, and children,—happy in their work and joyful in [[50]]prospect: what could one desire further, if each be full according to his capacity and refinement?
“You ask what I purpose to do further, or leave untouched. I desire to leave untouched some 3,000 acres of moor-land needed for their sheep, serviceable for peat fuel, freedom of air and mind and body, and the growth of all the lovely things of moss and heather. Wherever land is capable of improvement, I hold it is a grave responsibility until it is done. You must come and look for yourself some day.
“I enclose a cheque for ten guineas for St. George’s Fund, with my best wishes for this new year.
“Ever yours affectionately.”
I have questioned one or two minor points in my friend’s letters; but on the whole, they simply describe a piece of St. George’s old England, still mercifully left,—and such as I hope to make even a few pieces more, again; conquering them out of the Devil’s new England. [[51]]
[1] I don’t remember telling you anything of the sort. I should tell you another story now, my dear friend. [↑]
[2] Very fine; but have all the children in Sheffield and Leeds had their pennyworth of gospel, first? [↑]
[3] All I can say is, tastes differ; but I have not myself tried the degree of comfort which may be attained in winter by lying on one’s side in a coal-seam, and cannot therefore feel confidence in offering an opinion. [↑]
[4] Very much so indeed, my good friend; and yet, the plague of it is, one never can get people to do anything that is wise or generous, unless they go and make monks of themselves. I believe this St. George’s land of mine will really be the first place where it has been attempted to get married people to live in any charitable and human way, and graft apples where they may eat them, without getting driven out of their Paradise. [↑]
[5] There, again! why, in the name of all that’s natural, can’t decent men and women use their tongues, on occasion, for what God made them for,—talking in a civil way; but must either go and make dumb beasts of themselves, or else (far worse) let out their tongues for hire, and live by vomiting novels and reviews! [↑]
FORS CLAVIGERA.
LETTER XXXIX.
On a foggy forenoon, two or three days ago, I wanted to make my way quickly from Hengler’s Circus to Drury Lane Theatre, without losing time which might be philosophically employed; and therefore afoot, for in a cab I never can think of anything but how the driver is to get past whatever is in front of him.
On foot, then, I proceeded, and accordingly by a somewhat complex diagonal line, to be struck, as the stars might guide me, between Regent Circus and Covent Garden. I have never been able, by the way, to make any coachman understand that such diagonals were not always profitable. Coachmen, as far as I know them, always possess just enough geometry to feel that the hypothenuse is shorter than the two sides, but I never yet could get one to see that an hypothenuse constructed of cross streets in the manner of the line A C, had no advantage, in the matter of distance to be traversed, over the simple thoroughfares A B, B C, while it involved [[52]]the loss of the momentum of the carriage, and a fresh start for the cattle, at seventeen corners instead of one, not to mention the probability of a block at half a dozen of them, none the less frequent since underground railways, and more difficult to get out of, in consequence of the increasing discourtesy and diminishing patience of all human creatures.
Now here is just one of the pieces of practical geometry and dynamics which a modern schoolmaster, exercising his pupils on the positions of letters in the word Chillianwallah, would wholly despise. Whereas, in St. George’s schools, it shall be very early learned, on a square and diagonal of actual road, with actual loaded wheelbarrow—first one-wheeled, and pushed; and secondly, two-wheeled, and pulled. And similarly, every bit of science the children learn shall be directly applied by them, and the use of it felt, which involves the truth of it being known in the best possible way, and without any debating thereof. And what they cannot apply they shall not be troubled to know. I am not the least desirous that they should know so much even of the sun as that it stands still, (if it does). They may remain, for anything I care, under the most simple conviction that it gets up every morning and goes to bed every night; but they shall assuredly possess the applicable science of the hour it gets up at, and goes to bed at, on any day of the year, because they will have [[53]]to regulate their own gettings up and goings to bed upon those solar proceedings.
Well, to return to Regent Street. Being afoot, I took the complex diagonal, because by wise regulation of one’s time and angle of crossing, one may indeed move on foot in an economically drawn line, provided one does not miss its main direction. As it chanced, I took my line correctly enough; but found so much to look at and think of on the way, that I gained no material advantage. First, I could not help stopping to consider the metaphysical reasons of the extreme gravity and self-abstraction of Archer Street. Then I was delayed a while in Prince’s Street, Soho, wondering what Prince it had belonged to. Then I got through Gerrard Street into Little Newport Street; and came there to a dead pause, to think why, in these days of division of mechanical labour, there should be so little space for classification of commodities, as to require oranges, celery, butchers’ meat, cheap hosiery, soap, and salt fish, to be all sold in the same alley.
Some clue to the business was afforded me by the sign of the ‘Hotel de l’Union des Peuples’ at the corner, “bouillon et bœuf à emporter;” but I could not make out why, in spite of the union of people, the provision merchant at the opposite corner had given up business, and left his house with all its upper windows broken, and its door nailed up. Finally, I was stopped at the corner of Cranbourne Street by a sign over a large shop advising me to buy some “screwed boots and shoes.” I am too shy [[54]]to go in and ask, on such occasions, what screwed boots are, or at least too shy to come out again without buying any, if the people tell me politely, and yet I couldn’t get the question what such things may be out of my head, and nearly got run over in consequence, before attaining the Arcadian shelter of Covent Garden. I was but just in time to get my tickets for Jack in the Box, on the day I wanted, and put them carefully in the envelope with those I had been just securing at Hengler’s for my fifth visit to Cinderella. For indeed, during the last three weeks, the greater part of my available leisure has been spent between Cinderella and Jack in the Box; with this curious result upon my mind, that the intermediate scenes of Archer Street and Prince’s Street, Soho, have become to me merely as one part of the drama, or pantomime, which I happen to have seen last; or, so far as the difference in the appearance of men and things may compel me to admit some kind of specific distinction, I begin to ask myself, Which is the reality, and which the pantomime? Nay, it appears to me not of much moment which we choose to call Reality. Both are equally real; and the only question is whether the cheerful state of things which the spectators, especially the youngest and wisest, entirely applaud and approve at Hengler’s and Drury Lane, must necessarily be interrupted always by the woful interlude of the outside world.
It is a bitter question to me, for I am myself now, hopelessly, a man of the world!—of that woful outside [[55]]one, I mean. It is now Sunday; half-past eleven in the morning. Everybody about me is gone to church except the kind cook, who is straining a point of conscience to provide me with dinner. Everybody else is gone to church, to ask to be made angels of, and profess that they despise the world and the flesh, which I find myself always living in, (rather, perhaps, living, or endeavouring to live, in too little of the last). And I am left alone with the cat, in the world of sin.
But I scarcely feel less an outcast when I come out of the Circus, on week days, into my own world of sorrow. Inside the Circus, there have been wonderful Mr. Edward Cooke, and pretty Mademoiselle Aguzzi, and the three brothers Leonard, like the three brothers in a German story, and grave little Sandy, and bright and graceful Miss Hengler, all doing the most splendid feats of strength, and patience, and skill. There have been dear little Cinderella and her Prince, and all the pretty children beautifully dressed, taught thoroughly how to behave, and how to dance, and how to sit still, and giving everybody delight that looks at them; whereas, the instant I come outside the door, I find all the children about the streets ill-dressed, and ill-taught, and ill-behaved, and nobody cares to look at them. And then, at Drury Lane, there’s just everything I want people to have always, got for them, for a little while; and they seem to enjoy them just as I should expect they would. Mushroom Common, with its lovely mushrooms, white and gray, so finely set off by the [[56]]incognita fairy’s scarlet cloak; the golden land of plenty with furrow and sheath; Buttercup Green, with its flock of mechanical sheep, which the whole audience claps because they are of pasteboard, as they do the sheep in Little Red Riding Hood because they are alive; but in either case, must have them on the stage in order to be pleased with them, and never clap when they see the creatures in a field outside. They can’t have enough, any more than I can, of the loving duet between Tom Tucker and little Bo Peep: they would make the dark fairy dance all night long in her amber light if they could; and yet contentedly return to what they call a necessary state of things outside, where their corn is reaped by machinery, and the only duets are between steam whistles. Why haven’t they a steam whistle to whistle to them on the stage, instead of Miss Violet Cameron? Why haven’t they a steam Jack in the Box to jump for them, instead of Mr. Evans? or a steam doll to dance for them, instead of Miss Kate Vaughan? They still seem to have human ears and eyes, in the Theatre; to know there, for an hour or two, that golden light, and song, and human skill and grace, are better than smoke-blackness, and shrieks of iron and fire, and monstrous powers of constrained elements. And then they return to their underground railroad, and say, ‘This, behold,—this is the right way to move, and live in a real world.’
Very notable it is also that just as in these two theatrical entertainments—the Church and the Circus,[[57]]—the imaginative congregations still retain some true notions of the value of human and beautiful things, and don’t have steam-preachers nor steam-dancers,—so also they retain some just notion of the truth, in moral things: Little Cinderella, for instance, at Hengler’s, never thinks of offering her poor fairy Godmother a ticket from the Mendicity Society. She immediately goes and fetches her some dinner. And she makes herself generally useful, and sweeps the doorstep, and dusts the door;—and none of the audience think any the worse of her on that account. They think the worse of her proud sisters who make her do it. But when they leave the Circus, they never think for a moment of making themselves useful, like Cinderella. They forthwith play the proud sisters as much as they can; and try to make anybody else, who will, sweep their doorsteps. Also, at Hengler’s, nobody advises Cinderella to write novels, instead of doing her washing, by way of bettering herself. The audience, gentle and simple, feel that the only chance she has of pleasing her Godmother, or marrying a prince, is in remaining patiently at her tub, as long as the Fates will have it so, heavy though it be. Again, in all dramatic representation of Little Red Riding Hood, everybody disapproves of the carnivorous propensities of the Wolf. They clearly distinguish there—as clearly as the Fourteenth Psalm, itself—between the class of animal which eats, and [[58]]the class of animal which is eaten. But once outside the theatre, they declare the whole human race to be universally carnivorous—and are ready themselves to eat up any quantity of Red Riding Hoods, body and soul, if they can make money by them.
And lastly,—at Hengler’s and Drury Lane, see how the whole of the pleasure of life depends on the existence of Princes, Princesses, and Fairies. One never hears of a Republican pantomime; one never thinks Cinderella would be a bit better off if there were no princes. The audience understand that though it is not every good little housemaid who can marry a prince, the world would not be the least pleasanter, for the rest, if there were no princes to marry.
Nevertheless, it being too certain that the sweeping of doorsteps diligently will not in all cases enable a pretty maiden to drive away from said doorsteps, for evermore, in a gilded coach,—one has to consider what may be the next best for her. And next best, or, in the greater number of cases, best altogether, will be that Love, with his felicities, should himself enter over the swept and garnished steps, and abide with her in her own life, such as it is. And since St. Valentine’s grace is with us, at this season, I will finish my Fors, for this time, by carrying on our little romance of the Broom-maker, to the place in which he unexpectedly finds it. In which romance, while we may perceive the [[59]]principal lesson intended by the author to be that the delights and prides of affectionate married life are consistent with the humblest station, (or may even be more easily found there than in a higher one,) we may for ourselves draw some farther conclusions which the good Swiss pastor only in part intended. We may consider in what degree the lightening of the wheels of Hansli’s cart, when they drave heavily by the wood of Muri, corresponds to the change of the English highway into Mount Parnassus, for Sir Philip Sidney; and if the correspondence be not complete, and some deficiency in the divinest power of Love be traceable in the mind of the simple person as compared to that of the gentle one, we may farther consider, in due time, how, without help from any fairy Godmother, we may make Cinderella’s life gentle to her, as well as simple; and, without taking the peasant’s hand from his labour, make his heart leap with joy as pure as a king’s.[1]
Well, said Hansli, I’ll help you; give me your bag; I’ll put it among my brooms, and nobody will see it. Everybody knows me. Not a soul will think I’ve got your shoes underneath there. You’ve only to tell me where to leave them—or indeed where to stop for you, [[60]]if you like. You can follow a little way off;—nobody will think we have anything to do with each other.
The young girl made no compliments.[2]
You are really very good,[3] said she, with a more serene face. She brought her packet, and Hans hid it so nicely that a cat couldn’t have seen it.
Shall I push, or help you to pull? asked the young girl, as if it had been a matter of course that she should also do her part in the work.
As you like best, though you needn’t mind; it isn’t a pair or two of shoes that will make my cart much heavier. The young girl began by pushing; but that did not last long. Presently she found herself[4] in front, pulling also by the pole.
It seems to me that the cart goes better so, said she. As one ought to suppose, she pulled with all her strength; that which nevertheless did not put her out of breath, nor hinder her from relating all she had in her head, or heart. [[61]]
They got to the top of the hill of Stalden without Hansli’s knowing how that had happened: the long alley[5] seemed to have shortened itself by half.
There, one made one’s dispositions; the young girl stopped behind, while Hansli, with her bag and his brooms, entered the town without the least difficulty, where he remitted her packet to the young girl, also without any accident; but they had scarcely time to say a word to each other before the press[6] of people, cattle, and vehicles separated them. Hansli had to look after his cart, lest it should be knocked to bits. And so ended the acquaintanceship for that day. This vexed Hansli not a little; howbeit he didn’t think long about it. We cannot (more’s the pity) affirm that the young girl had made an ineffaceable impression upon him,—and all the less, that she was not altogether made for producing ineffaceable impressions. She was a stunted little girl, with a broad face. That which she had of best was a good heart, and an indefatigable ardour for work; but those are things which, externally, are not very remarkable, and many people don’t take much notice of them.
Nevertheless, the next Tuesday, when Hansli saw himself[7] at his cart again, he found it extremely heavy. [[62]]
I wouldn’t have believed, said he to himself, what a difference there is between two pulling, and one.
Will she be there again, I wonder, thought he, as he came near the little wood of Muri. I would take her bag very willingly if she would help me to pull. Also the road is nowhere so ugly as between here and the town.[8]
And behold that it precisely happened that the young girl was sitting there upon the same bench, all the same as eight days before; only with the difference that she was not crying.
Have you got anything for me to carry to-day? asked Hansli, who found his cart at once became a great deal lighter at the sight of the young girl.
It is not only for that that I have waited, answered she; even if I had had nothing to carry to the town, I should have come, all the same; for eight days ago I wasn’t able to thank you; nor to ask if that cost anything.
A fine question! said Hansli. Why, you served me for a second donkey; and yet I never asked how much [[63]]I owed you for helping me to pull! So, as all that went of itself, the young girl brought her bundle, and Hansli hid it, and she went to put herself at the pole as if she had known it all by heart. I had got a little way from home, said she, before it came into my head that I ought to have brought a cord to tie to the cart behind, and that would have gone better; but another time, if I return, I won’t forget.
This association for mutual help found itself, then, established, without any long diplomatic debates, and in the most simple manner. And, that day, it chanced that they were also able to come back together as far as the place where their roads parted; all the same, they were so prudent as not to show themselves together before the gens-d’armes at the town gates.
And now for some time Hansli’s mother had been quite enchanted with her son. It seemed to her he was more gay, she said. He whistled and sang, now, all the blessed day; and tricked himself up, so that he could never have done.[9] Only just the other day he had bought a great-coat of drugget, in which he had nearly the air of a real counsellor. But she could not find any fault with him for all that; he was so good to her that certainly the good God must reward him;—as for herself, she was in no way of doing it, but could do nothing but pray for him. Not that you are to think, said she, that he puts everything into his clothes; [[64]]he has some money too. If God spares his life, I’ll wager that one day he’ll come to have a cow:—he has been talking of a goat ever so long; but it’s not likely I shall be spared to see it. And, after all, I don’t pretend to be sure it will ever be.
Mother, said Hans one day, I don’t know how it is; but either the cart gets heavier, or I’m not so strong as I was; for some time I’ve scarcely been able to manage it. It is getting really too much for me; especially on the Berne road, where there are so many hills.
I dare say, said the mother; aussi, why do you go on loading it more every day? I’ve been fretting about you many a time; for one always suffers for over-work when one gets old. But you must take care. Put a dozen or two of brooms less on it, and it will roll again all right.
That’s impossible, mother; I never have enough as it is, and I haven’t time to go to Berne twice a week.
But, Hansli, suppose you got a donkey. I’ve heard say they are the most convenient beasts in the world: they cost almost nothing, eat almost nothing, and anything one likes to give them; and that’s[10] as strong as a horse, without counting that one can make something [[65]]of the milk,—not that I want any, but one may speak of it.[11]
No, mother, said Hansli,—they’re as self-willed as devils: sometimes one can’t get them to do anything at all; and then what I should do with a donkey the other five days of the week! No, mother;—I was thinking of a wife,—hey, what say you?
But, Hansli, I think a goat or a donkey would be much better. A wife! What sort of idea is that that has come into your head? What would you do with a wife?
Do! said Hansli; what other people do, I suppose; and then, I thought she would help me to draw the cart, which goes ever so much better with another hand:—without counting that she could plant potatoes between times, and help me to make my brooms, which I couldn’t get a goat or a donkey to do.
But, Hansli, do you think to find one, then, who will help you to draw the cart, and will be clever enough to do all that? asked the mother, searchingly.
Oh, mother, there’s one who has helped me already often with the cart, said Hansli, and who would be good for a great deal besides; but as to whether she would marry me or not, I don’t know, for I haven’t asked her. I thought that I would tell you first.
You rogue of a boy, what’s that you tell me there? [[66]]I don’t understand a word of it, cried the mother. You too!—are you also like that? The good God Himself might have told me, and I wouldn’t have believed Him. What’s that you say?—you’ve got a girl to help you to pull the cart! A pretty business to engage her for! Ah well,—trust men after this!
Thereupon Hansli put himself to recount the history; and how that had happened quite by chance; and how that girl was just expressly made for him: a girl as neat as a clock,—not showy, not extravagant,—and who would draw the cart better even than a cow could. But I haven’t spoken to her of anything, however. All the same, I think I’m not disagreeable to her. Indeed, she has said to me once or twice that she wasn’t in a hurry to marry; but if she could manage it, so as not to be worse off than she was now, she wouldn’t be long making up her mind. She knows, for that matter, very well also why she is in the world. Her little brothers and sisters are growing up after her; and she knows well how things go, and how the youngest are always made the most of, for one never thinks of thanking the elder ones for the trouble they’ve had in bringing them up.
All that didn’t much displease the mother; and the more she ruminated over these unexpected matters, the more it all seemed to her very proper. Then she put herself to make inquiries, and learned that nobody knew the least harm of the girl. They told her she [[67]]did all she could to help her parents; but that with the best they could do, there wouldn’t be much to fish for. Ah, well: it’s all the better, thought she; for then neither of them can have much to say to the other.
The next Tuesday, while Hansli was getting his cart ready, his mother said to him,
Well, speak to that girl: if she consents, so will I; but I can’t run after her. Tell her to come here on Sunday, that I may see her, and at least we can talk a little. If she is willing to be nice, it will all go very well. Aussi, it must happen some time or other, I suppose.
But, mother, it isn’t written anywhere that it must happen, whether or no; and if it doesn’t suit you, nothing hinders me from leaving it all alone.
Nonsense, child; don’t be a goose. Hasten thee to set out; and say to that girl, that if she likes to be my daughter-in-law, I’ll take her, and be very well pleased.
Hansli set out, and found the young girl. Once that they were pulling together, he at his pole, and she at her cord, Hansli put himself to say,
That certainly goes as quick again when there are thus two cattle at the same cart. Last Saturday I went to Thun by myself, and dragged all the breath out of my body.
Yes, I’ve often thought, said the young girl, that it was very foolish of you not to get somebody to help [[68]]you; all the business would go twice as easily, and you would gain twice as much.
What would you have? said Hansli. Sometimes one thinks too soon of a thing, sometimes too late,—one’s always mortal.[12] But now it really seems to me that I should like to have somebody for a help; if you were of the same mind, you would be just the good thing for me. If that suits you, I’ll marry you.
Well, why not,—if you don’t think me too ugly nor too poor? answered the young girl. Once you’ve got me, it will be too late to despise me. As for me, I could scarcely fall in with a better chance. One always gets a husband,—but, aussi, of what sort? You are quite good enough[13] for me: you take care of your affairs, and I don’t think you’ll treat a wife like a dog.
My faith, she will be as much master as I; if she is not pleased that way, I don’t know what more to do, said Hansli. And for other matters, I don’t think you’ll be worse off with me than you have been at home. If that suits you, come to see us on Sunday. It’s my mother who told me to ask you, and to say that if you liked to be her daughter-in-law, she would be very well pleased. [[69]]
Liked! But what could I want more? I am used to submit myself, and take things as they come,—worse to-day, better to-morrow,—sometimes more sour, sometimes less. I never have thought that a hard word made a hole in me, else by this time I shouldn’t have had a bit of skin left as big as a kreutzer. But, all the same, I must tell my people, as the custom is. For the rest, they won’t give themselves any trouble about the matter. There are enough of us in the house: if any one likes to go, nobody will stop them.[14]
And, aussi, that was what happened. On Sunday the young girl really appeared at Rychiswyl. Hansli had given her very clear directions; nor had she to ask long before she was told where the broom-seller lived. The mother made her pass a good examination upon the garden and the kitchen; and would know what book of prayers she used, and whether she could read in the New Testament, and also in the Bible,[15] for it was very bad for the children, and it was always they who suffered, if the mother didn’t know enough for that, said the old woman. The girl pleased her, and the affair was concluded. [[70]]
You won’t have a beauty there, said she to Hansli, before the young girl; nor much to crow about, in what she has got. But all that is of no consequence. It isn’t beauty that makes the pot boil; and as for money, there’s many a man who wouldn’t marry a girl unless she was rich, who has had to pay his father-in-law’s debts in the end. When one has health, and work, in one’s arms, one gets along always. I suppose (turning to the girl) you have got two good chemises and two gowns, so that you won’t be the same on Sunday and work-days?
Oh yes, said the young girl; you needn’t give yourself any trouble about that. I’ve one chemise quite new, and two good ones besides,—and four others which, in truth, are rather ragged. But my mother said I should have another; and my father, that he would make me my wedding shoes, and they should cost me nothing. And with that I’ve a very nice godmother, who is sure to give me something fine;—perhaps a saucepan, or a frying-stove,[16]—who knows? without counting that perhaps I shall inherit something from her some day. She has some children, indeed, but they may die.
Perfectly satisfied on both sides, but especially the girl, to whom Hansli’s house, so perfectly kept in order, appeared a palace in comparison with her own home, full of children and scraps of leather, they separated, [[71]]soon to meet again and quit each other no more. As no soul made the slightest objection, and the preparations were easy,—seeing that new shoes and a new chemise are soon stitched together,—within a month, Hansli was no more alone on his way to Thun. And the old cart went again as well as ever.
And they lived happily ever after? You shall hear. The story is not at an end; note only, in the present phase of it, this most important point, that Hansli does not think of his wife as an expensive luxury, to be refused to himself unless under irresistible temptation. It is only the modern Pall-Mall-pattern Englishman who must ‘abstain from the luxury of marriage’ if he be wise. Hansli thinks of his wife, on the contrary, as a useful article, which he cannot any longer get on without. He gives us, in fact, a final definition of proper wifely quality,—“She will draw the cart better than a cow could.” [[73]]
[1] If to any reader, looking back on the history of Europe for the last four centuries, this sentence seems ironical, let him be assured that for the causes which make it seem so, during the last four centuries, the end of kinghood has come. [↑]
[2] Untranslateable. It means, she made no false pretence of reluctance, and neither politely nor feebly declined what she meant to accept. But the phrase might be used of a person accepting with ungraceful eagerness, or want of sense of obligation. A slight sense of this simplicity is meant by our author to be here included in the expression. [↑]
[3] “Trop bon.” It is a little more than ‘very good,’ but not at all equivalent to our English ‘too good.’ [↑]
[4] “Se trouva.” Untranslateable. It is very little more than ‘was’ in front. But that little more,—the slight sense of not knowing quite how she got there,—is necessary to mark the under-current of meaning; she goes behind the cart first, thinking it more modest; but presently, nevertheless, ‘finds herself’ in front; “the cart goes better, so.” [↑]
[5] There used to be an avenue of tall trees, about a quarter of a mile long, on the Thun road, just at the brow of the descent to the bridge of the Aar, at the lower end of the main street of Berne. [↑]
[6] “Cohue.” Confused and moving mass. We have no such useful word. [↑]
[7] “Se revit.” It would not be right to say here ‘se trouva,’ because [[62]]there is no surprise, or discovery, in the doing once again what is done every week. But one may nevertheless contemplate oneself, and the situation, from a new point of view. Hansli ‘se revit’—reviewed himself, literally; a very proper operation, every now and then, for everybody. [↑]
[8] A slight difference between the Swiss and English peasant is marked here; to the advantage of the former. At least, I imagine an English Hansli would not have known, even in love, whether the road was ugly or pretty. [↑]
[9] “Se requinquait a n’en plus finir.” Entirely beyond English rendering. [↑]
[10] “Ça.” Note the peculiar character and value, in modern French, of this general and slightly depreciatory pronoun, essentially a republican word,—hurried, inconsiderate, and insolent. The popular chant ‘ça ira’ gives the typical power. [↑]
[11] “C’est seulement pour dire.” I’ve been at least ten minutes trying to translate it, and can’t. [↑]
[12] “On est toujours homme.” The proverb is frequent among the French and Germans. The modesty of it is not altogether easy to an English mind, and would be totally incomprehensible to an ordinary Scotch one. [↑]
[13] “Assez brave.” Untranslateable, except by the old English sense of the word brave, and even that has more reference to outside show than the French word. [↑]
[14] You are to note carefully the conditions of sentiment in family relationships implied both here, and in the bride’s reference, farther on, to her godmother’s children. Poverty, with St. Francis’ pardon, is not always holy in its influence: yet a richer girl might have felt exactly the same, without being innocent enough to say so. [↑]
[15] I believe the reverend and excellent novelist would himself authorize the distinction; but Hansli’s mother must be answerable for it to my Evangelical readers. [↑]
[16] “Poêle a frire.” I don’t quite understand the nature of this article. [↑]
FORS CLAVIGERA.
LETTER XL.
I am obliged to go to Italy this spring, and find beside me, a mass of Fors material in arrear, needing various explanation and arrangement, for which I have no time. Fors herself must look to it, and my readers use their own wits in thinking over what she has looked to. I begin with a piece of Marmontel, which was meant to follow, ‘in due time,’ the twenty-first letter,—of which, please glance at the last four pages again. This following bit is from another story professing to give some account of Molière’s Misanthrope, in his country life, after his last quarrel with Celimène. He calls on a country gentleman, M. de Laval, “and was received by him with the simple and serious courtesy which announces neither the need nor the vain desire of making new connections. Behold, said he, a man who does not surrender himself at once. I esteem him the more. He congratulated M. de Laval [[74]]on the agreeableness of his solitude. You come to live here, he said to him, far from men, and you are very right to avoid them.
I, Monsieur! I do not avoid men; I am neither so weak as to fear them, so proud as to despise them, or so unhappy as to hate them.
This answer struck so home that Alceste was disconcerted by it; but he wished to sustain his debût, and began to satirize the world.
I have lived in the world like another, said M. de Laval, and I have not seen that it was so wicked. There are vices and virtues in it,—good and evil mingled,—I confess; but nature is so made, and one should know how to accommodate oneself to it.
On my word, said Alceste, in that unison the evil governs to such a point that it chokes the other. Sir, replied the Viscount, if one were as eager to discover good as evil, and had the same delight in spreading the report of it,—if good examples were made public as the bad ones almost always are,—do you not think that the good would weigh down the balance?[1] But gratitude speaks so low, and indignation so loudly, that you cannot hear but the last. Both friendship and esteem are commonly moderate in their praises; they imitate the modesty of honour, in praise, while [[75]]resentment and mortification exaggerate everything they describe.
Monsieur, said Alceste to the Viscount, you make me desire to think as you do; and even if the sad truth were on my side, your error would be preferable. Ah, yes, without doubt, replied M. de Laval, ill-humour is good for nothing, the fine part that it is, for a man to play, to fall into a fit of spite like a child!—and why? For the mistakes of the circle in which one has lived, as if the whole of nature were in the plot against us, and responsible for the hurt we have received.
You are right, replied Alceste, it would be unjust to consider all men as partners in fault; yet how many complaints may we not justly lodge against them, as a body? Believe me, sir, my judgment of them has serious and grave motives. You will do me justice when you know me. Permit me to see you often! Often, said the Viscount, will be difficult. I have much business, and my daughter and I have our studies, which leave us little leisure; but sometimes, if you will, let us profit by our neighbourhood, at our ease, and without formality, for the privilege of the country is to be alone, when we like.
Some days afterwards Monsieur de Laval returned his visit, and Alceste spoke to him of the pleasure that he doubtless felt in making so many people happy. It is a beautiful example, he said, and, to the shame of men, a very rare one. How many persons there are, more powerful [[76]]and more rich than you, who are nothing but a burden to their inferiors! I neither excuse nor blame them altogether, replied M. de Laval. In order to do good, one must know how to set about it; and do not think that it is so easy to effect our purpose. It is not enough even to be sagacious; it is needful also to be fortunate; it is necessary to find sensible and docile persons to manage:[2] and one has constantly need of much address, and patience, to lead the people, naturally suspicious and timid, to what is really for their advantage. Indeed, said Alceste, such excuses are continually made; but have you not conquered all these obstacles? and why should not others conquer them? I, said M. de Laval, have been tempted by opportunity, and seconded by accident.[3] The people of this province, at the time that I came into possession of my estate, were in a condition of extreme distress. I did but stretch my arms to them; they gave themselves up to me in despair. An arbitrary tax had been lately imposed upon them, which they regarded with so much terror that they preferred sustaining hardships to making any appearance of having wealth; and I found, current through the country, this desolating and destructive maxim, ‘The more we work, the more we shall be trodden down.’ (It is [[77]]precisely so in England to-day, also.) “The men dared not be laborious; the women trembled to have children.”
I went back to the source of the evil. I addressed myself to the man appointed for the reception of the tribute. Monsieur, I said to him, my vassals groan under the weight of the severe measures necessary to make them pay the tax. I wish to hear no more of them; tell me what is wanting yet to make up the payment for the year, and I will acquit the debt myself. Monsieur, replied the receiver, that cannot be. Why not? said I. Because it is not the rule. What! is it not the rule to pay the King the tribute that he demands with the least expense and the least delay possible? Yes, answered he, that would be enough for the King, but it would not be enough for me. Where should I be if they paid money down? It is by the expense of the compulsory measures that I live; they are the perquisites of my office. To this excellent reason I had nothing to reply, but I went to see the head of the department, and obtained from him the place of receiver-general for my peasants.
My children, I then said to them, (assembling them on my return home,) I have to announce to you that you are in future to deposit in my hands the exact amount of the King’s tribute, and no more. There will be no more expenses, no more bailiff’s visits. Every Sunday at the bank of the parish, your wives shall bring me their savings, and insensibly you shall find yourselves out of debt. Work now, and cultivate your land; make the most of it [[78]]you can; no farther tax shall be laid on you. I answer for this to you—I who am your father. For those who are in arrear, I will take some measures for support, or I will advance them the sum necessary,[4] and a few days at the dead time of the year, employed in work for me, will reimburse me for my expenses. This plan was agreed upon, and we have followed it ever since. The housewives of the village bring me their little offerings: I encourage them, and speak to them of our good King; and what was an act of distressing servitude, has become an unoppressive act of love.
Finally, as there was a good deal of superfluous time, I established the workshop that you have seen; it turns everything to account, and brings into useful service time which would be lost between the operations of agriculture: the profits of it are applied to public works. A still more precious advantage of this establishment is its having greatly increased the population—more children are born, as there is certainty of extended means for their support.”
Now note, first, in this passage what material of loyalty and affection there was still in the French heart before the Revolution; and, secondly, how useless it is to be a good King, if the good King allows his officers to live upon the cost of compulsory measures.[5] [[79]]And remember that the French Revolution was the revolt of absolute loyalty and love against the senseless cruelty of a “good King.”
Next, for a little specimen of the state of our own working population; and the “compulsory—not measures, but measureless license,” under which their loyalty and love are placed,—here is a genuine working woman’s letter; and if the reader thinks I have given it him in its own spelling that he may laugh at it, the reader is wrong.
“May 12, 1873.
“Dear ——
“Wile Reading the herald to Day on the subject on shortor houers of Labour[6] I was Reminded of A cercomstance that came under my hone notis when the 10 hours sistom Began in the cotton mills in Lancashire I was Minding a mesheen with 30 treds in it I was then maid to mind 2 of 30 treds each with one shilling Advance of wages wich was 5s for one and 6s for tow with an increes of speed and with improved mecheens in A few years I was minding tow mecheens with tow 100 trads Each and Dubel speed for 9s perweek so that in our improved condation we had to turn out some 100 weght per day and we went as if the Devel was After us for 10 houers per day and with that comparetive small Advance in money and the feemals have [[80]]ofton Been carred out fainting what with the heat and hard work and those that could not keep up mst go and make room for a nother and all this is Done in Christian England and then we are tould to Be content in the station of Life in wich the Lord as places us But I say the Lord never Did place us there so we have no Right to Be content o that Right and not might was the Law yours truely C. H. S.”
Next to this account of Machine-labour, here is one of Hand-labour, also in a genuine letter,—this second being to myself; (I wish the other had been also, but it was to one of my friends.)
“Beckenham, Kent,
“Sept. 24, 1873.
“That is a pleasant evening in our family when we read and discuss the subjects of ‘Fors Clavigera,’ and we frequently reperuse them, as for instance, within a few days, your August letter. In page 16 I was much struck by the notice of the now exploded use of the spinning wheel. My mother, a Cumberland woman, was a spinner, and the whole process, from the fine thread that passed through her notable fingers, and the weaving into linen by an old cottager—a very ‘Silas Marner,’—to the bleaching on the orchard grass, was well known to my sister[7] and myself, when children.
“When I married, part of the linen that I took to [[81]]my new home was my mother’s spinning, and one fine table-cloth was my grandmother’s. What factory, with its thousand spindles, and chemical bleaching powders, can send out such linen as that, which lasted three generations?[8]
“I should not have troubled you with these remarks, had I not at the moment when I read your paragraph on hand-spinning, received a letter from my daughter, now for a time resident in Coburg, (a friend of Octavia Hill’s,) which bears immediately on the subject. I have therefore ventured to transcribe it for your perusal, believing that the picture she draws from life, beautiful as it is for its simplicity, may give you a moment’s pleasure.”
“Coburg, Sept. 4, 1873.
“On Thursday I went to call on Frau L.; she was not in; so I went to her mother’s, Frau E., knowing that I should find her there. They were all sitting down to afternoon coffee, and asked me to join them, which I gladly did. I had my work-basket with me, and as they were all at work, it was pleasant to do the same thing. Hildigard was there; in fact she lives there, to take care of Frau E. since she had her fall and stiffened her ankle, a year ago. Hildigard took her spinning, and tied on her white apron, filled the little brass basin of the spinning-wheel with water, to wet her fingers, and set the wheel a-purring. I have never seen [[82]]the process before, and it was very pretty to see her, with her white fingers, and to hear the little low sound. It is quite a pity, I think, ladies do not do it in England,—it is so pretty, and far nicer work than crotchet, and so on, when it is finished. This soft linen made by hand is so superior to any that you get now. Presently the four children came in, and the great hunting dog, Feldman; and altogether I thought, as dear little Frau E. sat sewing in her arm-chair, and her old sister near her at her knitting, and Hildigard at her spinning, while pretty Frau L. sewed at her little girl’s stuff-skirt,—all in the old-fashioned room full of old furniture, and hung round with miniatures of still older dames and officers, in, to our eyes, strange stiff costumes, that it was a most charming scene, and one I enjoyed as much as going to the theatre,—which I did in the evening.”
A most charming scene, my dear lady, I have no doubt; just what Hengler’s Circus was, to me, this Christmas. Now for a little more of the charming scenery outside, and far away.
“12, Tunstall Terrace, Sunderland,
“14th Feb., 1874.
“My dear Sir,—The rice famine is down upon us in earnest, and finds our wretched ‘administration’ unprepared—a ministration unto death!
“It can carry childish gossip ‘by return of post’ into [[83]]every village in India, but not food; no, not food even for mothers and babes. So far has our scientific and industrial progress attained.
“To-night comes news that hundreds of deaths from starvation have already occurred, and that even high-caste women are working on the roads;—no food from stores of ours except at the price of degrading, health-destroying, and perfectly useless toil. God help the nation responsible for this wickedness!
“Dear Mr. Ruskin, you wield the most powerful pen in England, can you not shame us into some sense of duty, some semblance of human feeling? [Certainly not. My good sir, as far as I know, nobody ever minds a word I say, except a few nice girls, who are a great comfort to me, but can’t do anything. They don’t even know how to spin, poor little lilies!]
“I observe that the ‘Daily News’ of to-day is horrified at the idea that Disraeli should dream of appropriating any part of the surplus revenue to the help of India in this calamity [of course], and even the ‘Spectator’ calls that a ‘dangerous’ policy. So far is even ‘the conscience of the Press’ [What next?] corrupted by the dismal science.
“I am, yours truly.”
So far the Third Fors has arranged matters for me; but I must put a stitch or two into her work.
Look back to my third letter, for March, 1871, page 5. You see it is said there that the French war [[84]]and its issues were none of Napoleon’s doing, nor Count Bismarck’s; that the mischief in them was St. Louis’s doing; and the good, such as it was, the rough father of Frederick the Great’s doing.
The father of Frederick the Great was an Evangelical divine of the strictest orthodoxy,—very fond of beer, bacon, and tobacco, and entirely resolved to have his own way, supposing, as pure Evangelical people always do, that his own way was God’s also. It happened, however, for the good of Germany, that this king’s own way, to a great extent, was God’s also,—(we will look at Carlyle’s statement of that fact another day,)—and accordingly he maintained, and the ghost of him,—with the help of his son, whom he had like to have shot as a disobedient and dissipated character,—maintains to this day in Germany, such sacred domestic life as that of which you have an account in the above letter. Which, in peace, is entirely happy, for its own part; and, in war, irresistible.
‘Entirely blessed,’ I had written first, too carelessly. I have had to scratch out the ‘blessed’ and put in ‘happy.’ For blessing is only for the meek and merciful, and a German cannot be either; he does not understand even the meaning of the words. In that is the intense, irreconcilable difference between the French and German natures. A Frenchman is selfish only when he is vile and lustful; but a German, selfish in the purest states of virtue and morality. A Frenchman is arrogant [[85]]only in ignorance; but no quantity of learning ever makes a German modest. “Sir,” says Albert Durer of his own work, (and he is the modestest German I know,) “it cannot be better done.” Luther serenely damns the entire gospel of St. James, because St. James happens to be not precisely of his own opinions.
Accordingly, when the Germans get command of Lombardy, they bombard Venice, steal her pictures, (which they can’t understand a single touch of,) and entirely ruin the country, morally and physically, leaving behind them misery, vice, and intense hatred of themselves, wherever their accursed feet have trodden. They do precisely the same thing by France,—crush her, rob her, leave her in misery of rage and shame; and return home, smacking their lips, and singing Te Deums.
But when the French conquer England, their action upon it is entirely beneficent. Gradually, the country, from a nest of restless savages, becomes strong and glorious; and having good material to work upon, they make of us at last a nation stronger than themselves.
Then the strength of France perishes, virtually, through the folly of St. Louis;—her piety evaporates, her lust gathers infectious power, and the modern Cité rises round the Sainte Chapelle.
It is a woful history. But St. Louis does not perish selfishly; and perhaps is not wholly dead yet,—whatever Garibaldi and his red-jackets may think about him, and their ‘Holy Republic.’ [[86]]
Meantime Germany, through Geneva, works quaintly against France, in our British destiny, and makes an end of many a Sainte Chapelle, in our own sweet river islands. Read Froude’s sketch of the Influence of the Reformation on Scottish Character, in his “Short studies on great subjects.” And that would be enough for you to think of, this month; but as this letter is all made up of scraps, it may be as well to finish with this little private note on Luther’s people, made last week.
4th March, 1874.—I have been horribly plagued and misguided by evangelical people, all my life; and most of all lately; but my mother was one, and my Scotch aunt; and I have yet so much of the superstition left in me, that I can’t help sometimes doing as evangelical people wish,—for all I know it comes to nothing.
One of them, for whom I still have some old liking left, sent me one of their horrible sausage-books the other day, made of chopped-up Bible; but with such a solemn and really pathetic adjuration to read a ‘text’ every morning, that, merely for old acquaintance’ sake, I couldn’t refuse. It is all one to me, now, whether I read my Bible, or my Homer, at one leaf or another; only I take the liberty, pace my evangelical friend, of looking up the contexts if I happen not to know them.
Now I was very much beaten and overtired yesterday, chiefly owing to a week of black fog, spent in looking [[87]]over the work of days and people long since dead; and my ‘text’ this morning was, “Deal courageously, and the Lord do that which seemeth Him good.” It sounds a very saintly, submissive, and useful piece of advice; but I was not quite sure who gave it; and it was evidently desirable to ascertain that.
For, indeed, it chances to be given, not by a saint at all, but by quite one of the most self-willed people on record in any history,—about the last in the world to let the Lord do that which seemed Him good; if he could help it, unless it seemed just as good to himself also,—Joab the son of Zeruiah. The son, to wit, of David’s elder sister; who, finding that it seemed good to the Lord to advance the son of David’s younger sister to a place of equal power with himself, unhesitatingly smites his thriving young cousin under the fifth rib, while pretending to kiss him, and leaves him wallowing in blood in the midst of the highway. But we have no record of the pious or resigned expressions he made use of on that occasion. We have no record, either, of several other matters one would have liked to know about these people. How it is, for instance, that David has to make a brother of Saul’s son;—getting, as it seems, no brotherly kindness—nor, more wonderful yet, sisterly kindness—at his own fireside. It is like a German story of the seventh son—or the seventh bullet—as far as the brothers are concerned; but these sisters, had they also no love for their brave [[88]]young shepherd brother? Did they receive no countenance from him when he was king? Even for Zeruiah’s sake, might he not on his death-bed have at least allowed the Lord to do what seemed Him good with Zeruiah’s son, who had so well served him in his battles, (and so quietly in the matter of Bathsheba,) instead of charging the wisdom of Solomon to find some subtle way of preventing his hoar head from going down to the grave in peace? My evangelical friend will of course desire me not to wish to be wise above that which is written. I am not to ask even who Zeruiah’s husband was?—nor whether, in the West-end sense, he was her husband at all?—Well; but if I only want to be wise up to the meaning of what is written? I find, indeed, nothing whatever said of David’s elder sister’s lover;—but, of his younger sister’s lover, I find it written in this evangelical Book-Idol, in one place, that his name was Ithra, an Israelite, and in another that it was Jether, the Ishmaelite. Ithra or Jether, is no matter; Israelite or Ishmaelite, perhaps matters not much; but it matters a great deal that you should know that this is an ill written, and worse trans-written, human history, and not by any means ‘Word of God;’ and that whatever issues of life, divine or human, there may be in it, for you, can only be got by searching it; and not by chopping it up into small bits and swallowing it like pills. What a trouble there is, for instance, just now, in all manner of people’s minds, about Sunday keeping, [[89]]just because these evangelical people will swallow their bits of texts in an entirely indigestible state, without chewing them. Read your Bibles honestly and utterly, my scrupulous friends, and stand by the consequences,—if you have what true men call ‘faith.’ In the first place, determine clearly, if there is a clear place in your brains to do it, whether you mean to observe the Sabbath as a Jew, or the day of the Resurrection, as a Christian. Do either thoroughly; you can’t do both. If you choose to keep the ‘Sabbath,’ in defiance of your great prophet, St. Paul, keep the new moons too, and the other fasts and feasts of the Jewish law; but even so, remember that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath also, and that not only it is lawful to do good upon it, but unlawful, in the strength of what you call keeping one day Holy, to do Evil on other six days, and make those unholy; and, finally, that neither new-moon keeping, nor Sabbath keeping, nor fasting, nor praying, will in anywise help an evangelical city like Edinburgh to stand in the judgment higher than Gomorrah, while her week-day arrangements for rent from her lower orders are as follows:[9]—
“We entered the first room by descending two steps. It seemed to be an old coal-cellar, with an earthen floor, shining in many places from damp, and from a greenish [[90]]ooze which drained through the wall from a noxious collection of garbage outside, upon which a small window could have looked had it not been filled up with brown paper and rags. There was no grate, but a small fire smouldered on the floor, surrounded by heaps of ashes. The roof was unceiled, the walls were rough and broken, the only light came in from the open door, which let in unwholesome smells and sounds. No cow or horse could thrive in such a hole. It was abominable. It measured eleven feet by six feet, and the rent was 10d. per week, paid in advance. It was nearly dark at noon, even with the door open; but as my eyes became accustomed to the dimness, I saw that the plenishings consisted of an old bed, a barrel with a flagstone on the top of it for a table, a three-legged stool, and an iron pot. A very ragged girl, sorely afflicted with ophthalmia, stood among the ashes doing nothing. She had never been inside a school or church. She did not know how to do anything, but ‘did for her father and brother.’ On a heap of straw, partly covered with sacking, which was the bed in which father, son, and daughter slept, the brother, ill with rheumatism and sore legs, was lying moaning from under a heap of filthy rags. He had been a baker ‘over in the New Town,’ but seemed not very likely to recover. It looked as if the sick man had crept into his dark, damp lair, just to die of hopelessness. The father was past work, but ‘sometimes got an odd job to do.’ The sick man had supported the three. It [[91]]was hard to be godly, impossible to be cleanly, impossible to be healthy in such circumstances.
“The next room was entered by a low, dark, impeded passage about twelve feet long, too filthy to be traversed without a light. At the extremity of this was a dark winding stair which led up to four superincumbent storeys of crowded subdivided rooms; and beyond this, to the right, a pitch-dark passage with a ‘room’ on either side. It was not possible to believe that the most grinding greed could extort money from human beings for the tenancy of such dens as those to which this passage led. They were lairs into which a starving dog might creep to die, but nothing more. Opening a dilapidated door, we found ourselves in a recess nearly six feet high, and nine feet in length by five in breadth. It was not absolutely dark, yet matches aided our investigations even at noonday. There was an earthen floor full of holes, in some of which water had collected. The walls were black and rotten, and alive with woodlice. There was no grate. The rent paid for this evil den, which was only ventilated by the chimney, is 1s. per week, or £2 12s. annually! The occupier was a mason’s labourer, with a wife and three children. He had come to Edinburgh in search of work, and could not afford a ‘higher rent.’ The wife said that her husband took the ‘wee drap.’ So would the President of the Temperance League himself if he were hidden away in such a hole. The contents of this lair on our first visit were a great heap [[92]]of ashes and other refuse in one corner, some damp musty straw in another, a broken box in the third, with a battered tin pannikin upon it, and nothing else of any kind, saving two small children, nearly nude, covered with running sores, and pitiable from some eye disease. Their hair was not long, but felted into wisps, and alive with vermin. When we went in they were sitting among the ashes of an extinct fire, and blinked at the light from our matches. Here a neighbour said they sat all day, unless their mother was merciful enough to turn them into the gutter. We were there at eleven the following night, and found the mother, a decent, tidy body, at ‘hame.’ There was a small fire then, but no other light. She complained of little besides the darkness of the house, and said, in a tone of dull discontent, she supposed it was ‘as good as such as they could expect in Edinburgh.’ ” [[93]]
[1] Well said, the Viscount. People think me a grumbler; but I wholly believe this,—nay, know this. The world exists, indeed, only by the strength of its silent virtue. [↑]
[2] Well said, Viscount, again! So few people know the power of the Third Fors. If I had not chanced to give lessons in drawing to Octavia Hill, I could have done nothing in Marylebone, nor she either, for a while yet, I fancy. [↑]
[3] A lovely, classic, unbetterable sentence of Marmontel’s, perfect in wisdom and modesty. [↑]
[4] Not for a dividend upon it, I beg you to observe, and even the capital to be repaid in work. [↑]
[5] Or, worse still, as our public men do, upon the cost of non-compulsory measures! [↑]
[6] These small “powers” of terminal letters in some of the words are very curious. [↑]
[7] A lady high in the ranks of kindly English literature. [↑]
[8] Italics mine, as usual. [↑]
[9] Notes on Old Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1869. Things may possibly have mended in some respects in the last five years, but they have assuredly, in the country villages, got tenfold worse. [↑]